


The Hidden Hand: War of Thorns

by SaigonTimeMD



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 09:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15578649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaigonTimeMD/pseuds/SaigonTimeMD
Summary: Drawn into a conflict they're unsure of by a Warchief they can't trust, the Hidden Hand finds themselves tested in struggles they've never faced.





	The Hidden Hand: War of Thorns

                When Sylvanas’ strike force had landed the opening blow that split Ashenvale and drove into southern Darkshore, the Hidden Hand expected to be with her. They had gone to bed the night before ready for war – ready to kill, ready to die, ready to serve the Horde. Instead, the Horde war machine had marched on without them, leaving the Hidden Hand to wait in Orgrimmar; blades sharpened but hands tied. Over the next week, the general mood deteriorated from on edge to strained to outright unbearable as reports began to roll in. The team, already of differing opinions over every conceivable factor of the Warchief’s new war, began to split and fracture with every new revelation. Most of the Hidden Hand had seen enough of war to tell what was true and what was shell-shocked exaggeration, but what they went over in the increasingly tense daily briefings was a nightmare beyond any expectation.

                As the Horde’s front line advanced through the bleak density of Darkshore’s forests, the Night Elves and Worgen made them bleed for every inch, every step. Horror stories came back to Orgrimmar of trees that snatched up passing patrols and rained disembodied limbs back down on their fellow orcs, of predatory whisp swarms that descended on forward camps and turned every living thing to ash, of arrows that sang from nowhere and never missed their target. There were other horror stories too, but people didn’t like to tell them – and liked less to hear them: how the Horde had ‘culled’ the native furbolgs to use their village as a base camp, how Nazj’vel had become so choked with goblin and night elf corpses that both sides had abandoned it despite their mutual orders to lay claim, how the charnel stench of Astranaar had reached as far as Azshara, as if the ghosts of its exterminated population, civilians and sentinels alike butchered and burned in that first murderous blitz that began the war, refused to cross over.

                Field commanders were calling it the ‘War of Thorns.’

                The Warchief’s summons a week after the war began came almost as a relief, though the subsequent pickup came as a shock to the honor guard that Sylvanas had ordered. The decorated orcs and trolls lined up along the landing pad, ready to greet the Horde heroes they’d heard so much about, but what emerged to board the Interceptor transport – the Warchief had yet to replace the _Fist of Perdition_ , though that was hardly a surprise – was altogether less heroic and more terrible: a single file of sunken eyes, grim faces, and more strapped-on weaponry than the honor guard had ever seen. Each was an armory unto themselves, bristling death, and silent with purpose darker than just the taking of a holdout coastal village. A goblin in red and black leather who they’d been told was the leader of the group gave a curt nod to the crew once her team was secure, and the Interceptor heaved into the sky carrying its payload of living bombs.

                During the ride above Ashenvale, the honor guard, too intimidated by their cargo, made small talk with one another. They were, to a man, ignored. Audoris and Khatep attempted to meditate, keeping whatever communication that existed between the two on the psychic plane. Okarnah and Ton’vesi held hands. Most of the Hand just stared at the floor or out one of the Interceptor’s cannon ports. Lingexi and Vendettarius sat on opposite ends, and didn’t look at each other once. Even Lanstalios, who always had something to say, was quiet, and spent the flight examining the details of his newly-forged armor.

                The Hidden Hand disembarked as silently as they had come, marching off the gangplank into the plagued shadows of Felwood where High Overlord Saurfang waited with the bulk of Sylvanas’ forces, ready to make the final drive into Darkshore to crush the holdouts at Lor’danel in a single charge. The strike team disappeared in the green mist, and the trolls and orcs who’d come to see the heroes of legend off felt instead like they’d been escorting a cadre of vengeful ghosts, and a chill came to even the sternest heart when they thought of what awaited the harbor village below at the blades of the Hidden Hand.

 

                “Who’re we killing today?”

                It was the first words Vendettarius – indeed any of the Hidden Hand – had spoken that day. The High Overlord turned from his armored wolf to the source of the voice, and his already-grim expression darkened further when he saw the Hidden Hand awaiting orders. None of them had the patience to take offence, nor to notice the curious, fearful stares of the High Overlord’s vanguard. They were there for only one reason.

                “Night elves,” the High Overlord grunted. He walked to the edge and pointed; down the ridge, through the trees, Vendettarius could make out buildings on fire. His enhanced senses picked up the sounds of battle even from that distance, bellowing war cries and clashing blades. “Lor’danel still stands, despite the onslaught,” Saurfang continued. “Thanks to their spies in the forest, the kaldorei have been timing their reinforcements from Darnassus to arrive just before our own arrive from the Blackwood Den. We’ve been in a stalemate ever since.” The High Overlord nodded to the blaze far below. “The Warchief brought up demolishers yesterday, but their targets are limited. Lor’danel will be of little use as a staging ground if it’s a pile of ash.”

                High Overlord Saurfang unsheathed his gargantuan battleaxe and held it aloft, his voice rising to a war cry as he addressed the massed forces.

                “The Warchief has noosed Lor’danel, and now we will tighten it! We will push the kaldorei into the sea and take their harbor for our own! And after that…” High Overlord Saurfang turned for a moment, and his vanguard beat their chests and clanged their blades over their shields, stirred almost to a frenzy by the drama of the moment. When the High Overlord turned back, he wore a toothy-grin.    “And after that, we take the World Tree! For the Horde!”

                Even as the cry rose among the assembled warriors, Saurfang’s grin disappeared, and he closed distance with Vendettarius.

                “Between you and I,” he muttered, “Lor’danel is stalling for the kaldorei fleet to return from Silithus. We _must_ break the stalemate this day.”

                “Any sign of Malfurion?” Vendettarius asked. The High Overlord shook his head, and the plates of his red armor clinked together.

                “He impeded the Warchief’s progress at the border, but we’ve seen nothing since. He isn’t among the defenders at Lor’danel either.”

                Vendettarius’ eyes wandered up to the leafless trees above their heads, the skeletal branches surrounded by the perpetual miasma that choked Felwood’s skies.

                “If my team’s about to be bait for the most powerful druid on the planet, I’d like to know.”

                “Yes, _we_ would.”

                Both men looked down to see Lingexi standing beside them, her arms crossed like an irritated mother that’s just caught her two sons with their hands in the cookie jar. The one eye not hidden by a bloodvine lens narrowed at them.

                “And I’d appreciate if you addressed any additional tactical appraisals to me from now on.”

                “Force of habit,” the High Overlord grunted.

                “I’ve been commander of the Hidden Hand for almost five years, so.”

                Saurfang clenched his jaw, but offered no pushback. She was right.

                “If you are to be bait, I doubt you’re in any danger,” the High Overlord continued, now addressing the both of them. “I believe the Warchief means to track him down and end him herself before he can even reach Lor’danel.”

                “If Malfurion shows up, we’ll deal with him,” Lingexi said, shrugging. “What’s the sitrep?”

                “Heavily defended by Ancients, sentinels, and whisp swarms. If your team can break the Ancients, my men can deal with the latter two. The defenders are also being coordinated on the ground by two commanders: Caranne Briarbow and Ariel Stagguard. After we shatter the defensive line, those are your targets.”

                “Any civilians left?” Lingexi asked. For a moment, her face softened, then returned to the dead-set stare.

                “I’m about to address that,” Saurfang said. “Mount up.”

                The High Overlord climbed atop his wolf, then turned about to face the waiting soldiers. They looked back with hungry eyes and eager blades, and their wolves slavered at their bits.

                “Make no mistake, sons and daughters of the Horde, we are here for war,” he growled. The warriors began to roar again, but he silenced them with a single raised hand. “But war has a purpose. Butchery does not. I will not slay innocents, and neither will any of you.” His raised hand turned to an accusatory finger, and every soldier present turned stonefaced as a statue. “If any you find do not raise arms against you or can fight no more, you will take them prisoner and bring them to me – alive and unharmed. Should any injury befall them, you will answer to my _axe_. Do I make myself clear?”

                “Yes, High Overlord!” came the cry.

                Saurfang nodded and brought his armored wolf around to face down the ridge.

                “Lor’danel awaits!” he roared, “For the Horde!”

                The Hidden Hand silently took up positions across the formation’s left flank, riding along in a single file. Chickenpatch took up the lead position, rumbling along on his smoke-belching deathwheel; much to his chagrin, Lanstalios had hopped behind him on the seat and was holding on with his arms around the tauren’s waist. Behind him came Lingexi and Vendettarius on separate skeletal horses, and the rest behind. Audoris and Khatep, on a pair of blue silithids, brought up the rear.

                As the warriors rode down the ridge, a trot accelerating to a full-out charge, the Hand came forward to the front line without a word, moving into attack formation on instinct. Just as they had so many times before, they became the terrible tip of the Horde spear: eyes forward, knuckles white, weapons drawn. Pulling away from the pack, barreling toward the chaos of Lor’danel, they cleared the treeline nearly 30 seconds before the rest of Saurfang’s forces. A silver-fletched arrow whizzed past the High Overlord’s head, and he threw his head back.

                “FOR THE HORDE!”

                The red-armored masses, hand-picked by the High Overlord himself, raised their weapons and returned the call.

                Vendettarius put his hand out and touched the hem of Khatep’s robe, transmitting a single thought between them. The mutant warlock amplified the rogue’s command, broadcasting it to the rest of the Hidden Hand. With united purpose, they pushed on, doubling the distance from Saurfang’s troops. The Hidden Hand would be the doom of Lor’danel – and just maybe its salvation.

 

                Gunning his roaring deathwheel ahead of the others, Chickenpatch weaved around scores of demolishers and past dozens of staring orcs until he came to the footbridge that connected Lor’danel with the mainland. The Tauren warrior drove forward without hesitation, shattering the night elf barricades with a thunderous crash. An Ancient Protector, its gnarled face curdled with rage at this new attack, charged across the bridge, ready to shut down the push before it could gain momentum.

                Teeth clenched behind his spiked war mask, Chickenpatch locked in the throttle, flicked a yellow switch on the motorcycle’s dashboard down, and let the deathwheel’s acceleration carry itself out from under him. Lanstalios fell promptly on his backside, but Chickenpatch was knee-down, shield forward before both hooves were on the ground. Half a second later, the catch inside the yellow switch released and flicked up again. The hydraulic panel in the deathweel’s undercarriage slammed down on the bridge, launching the vehicle forward through the air and directly into the charging Ancient, who could do nothing but puts its hands up in a feeble attempt to block the oncoming vehicle. The massive tusks on the front of the deathwheel splintered its mighty fingers and buried themselves in the Ancient’s eyes shortly before the smoke-spewing vehicle’s momentum carried it _through_ its target, leaving nothing but a smoldering trunk with a gaping hole in its chest. The dead Ancient fell off the side of the bridge, its wooden body groaning as it collapsed on itself, and when it hit the water a terrible silence fell over the shocked night elves and stunned orcs that was broken only by the rustle of dead leaves flying into the air.

                “I’m so turned on right now,” Lanstalios whispered as he scrambled to his feet, hefting his war-mace over his shoulder.

                “Shut up and get behind me.”

                A sharp crack split the paralyzed hush, and one of the kaldorei sentinels fell to the ground clutching a bloody wound in her shoulder. A moment later, a half-dozen night elf arrows glanced off of Chickenpatch’s skull-adorned pavise.

                Just as the Lor’danel defenders began to come to their senses, the rest of the Hidden Hand descended from every direction. Some galloped across the undefended bridge, passing Chickenpatch and Lanstalios by inches, while others hurdled the gap between the village and the mainland. Hooves crashed on shields, teeth tore through armor, but the onslaught only worsened when the riders disembarked. Vendettarius and Lingexi launched directly into the fray, twin spinning blurs of furious steel and green-dripping daggers moving as one extremely angry entity. Ton’vesi leapt atop the fallen Ancient’s corpse and began to snap off shots while Krodeth and Kharne (her raptor and devilsaur) supported Okarnah’s lightining-dervish assault. The Ancient Protector guarding the other main bridge exploded, this time in a blaze of fel-green, and Cythrael ripped through its remains with an unearthly howl as Shirong and Athisia charged in behind her – though keeping a respectful distance. The beachhead to the south of the village transformed into a living nightmare as reality tore itself asunder: writhing tentacles struck out from holes in the ground, the water, and the very air itself, battering the kaldorei defenders back. Those who could not be driven to the village fell helpless to their knees as visions of horror and unrelenting pain wracked their exhausted minds. Together, Audoris and Khatep were a beacon of pulsing madness from which there was no escape.

                The kaldorei, having done nothing but funnel chokepoints over the last week, were slow to react to both the fury and speed of the onslaught, and it cost them everything they had wagered over the past week. Even knowing the fate of Teldrassil lay in their hands, they abandoned barricades with minimal resistance and retreated back to the inn and the docks, desperate for a turn in the tide of battle, frenzied with fear as their holdout collapsed around them. Had they been more organized or observant, they would have noticed a crucial detail:

                Not one among the kaldorei defenders who had fallen to the onslaught were dead.

                Vendettarius was striking out with the hilts and flats of his swords; _Voidmaw_ , his chattering main-hand blade, scratched at the corners of his mind, feeding off the despair and chaos of the battle but hungry for something more substantial. He denied it, and drove kick into the knee of a nearby sentinel; the night elf screamed in pain as his leg buckled, but he dropped his sword as he fell to the ground. As long as Saurfang’s orders were followed, it would be enough. Calling on the magic woven into his very being, Vendettarius accelerated his own perception of the battle and looked around to see how the rest of the team was keeping to the mission. Had he been in a better mood, he might’ve smiled.

                Lingexi’s daggers did not drip with a lethal toxin, but with a paralytic concoction she had perfected several years ago that caused full body lock-up with even the tiniest nick across the skin. Ton’vesi was taking out sword arms and shattering bows before they could be drawn, while her pets sent anyone close to Okarnah – who was sticking strictly to body blows – flying with a lash of their tails. Shirong and Cythrael, almost as well-synchronized as Lingexi and Vendettarius himself, were battering and flinging their way over towards the inn, leaving a trail of groaning kaldorei clutching their heads and stomachs. Better yet, they provided no targets to Athisia, who looked practically furious behind her elaborate new mask that there was no one left for her to shatter into a thousand icy pieces. Chickenpatch seemed content to slowly advance forward behind his massive wall shield, forcing the night elves to retreat without a single swing, and Lanstalios was content to hide behind them both. The beach looked like something out of a horror story, but the screaming kaldorei were at least still alive.

He heard a muffled voice, shouting in anger, and the blue haze around the edges of his vision receded as time snapped back into place. There were two voices calling – no, barking orders, rallying the kaldorei – one from the docks, one from the beachhead.

_Briarbow and Stagguard._

                At the clear voices of their commanders, the beleaguered kaldorei began to shore up and close ranks. Even the lesser-injured defenders tried to struggle to their feet. A look over his shoulder told Vendettarius that the decapitating pincer of Saurfang’s troops was only seconds away. If those commanders weren’t stopped now, the rest were as good as dead. Ignoring the pounding in his head from pushing his power for so long, he launched himself towards the docks, hoping that Khatep and Audoris would come to the same conclusion. Lingexi saw her love break into a sprint across the village, snapped the arm of the kaldorei she was currently pinning, and took off after him.

 

                “Your terrors are only tricks, monster!” Caranne Briarbow yelled, loosing an arrow at the approaching creature. It was a hulking, bent thing in a filthy red robe, wearing a tattered hood that barely concealed the writhing mass of tentacles where its face should’ve been. The arrow hit it in the chest, but the thing was unfazed; the arrow sunk into its body, shaking as if something _within_ the sorcerous creature’s robes was chewing it up. The kaldorei commander snorted; surely the creature could be shot _somewhere_ that would hurt it. She just had to find it. Good thing she had a lot of arrows.

 _This terror is bliss compared to the nightmare that awaits!_ the warlock pulsed, roaring in her mind with a thousand gnashing voices. _Kneel and be spared!_

                “Never to the likes of you!” she yelled back, and fired another volley. A furtive shape behind the slowly-approaching creature dodged to the side, and Caranne saw it was an undead priest of some sort that had been taking refuge behind her monstrous compatriot’s bulk. Void energies billowed off of her, and the fiend’s steel-jawed face was contorted with effort; no doubt this was the source of the swarms of tentacles pinning Caranne’s fellow night elves in place along the sand. The solution to her problem dawned on her, and she switched targets with a snarl.

                As if sensing her intent, the priest looked up, and Caranne felt an ounce of satisfaction within the wave of rage that held her heart. Ignoring the blistering pain across her skin and the warlock’s raging chorus, she nocked another arrow and aimed for the priest’s fever-yellow eyes. The Forsaken threw up her hands in protest, but nothing would stop Caranne’s arrow now. These monsters had slaughtered her people, ruined her forest, and now stood poised to take the only home she had ever known; she would die before—

                The void tentacle shot out of the rift behind Caranne and struck her hard across the neck, harder than Audoris had intended. The kaldorei’s head jerked in the wrong direction, and for a terrible second she stood frozen on the beach as if under a spell, the arrow still half-drawn in its bow. She tilted over like a statue, then went slack as she hit the sand.

                Khatep whirled on Audoris only to see her bony hands covering her mouth, her yellow eyes fixed on the dead night elf and welling up with black tears. Across the beachhead, the kaldorei began to wail as they dropped their weapons.

 

                “Caranne!” Ariel Stagguard cried out from the dock as she saw her fellow commander fall on the beach. They had watched over these lands for years together, in good times and bad, even when Deathwing came to split the world in two. She was a sister and a friend. Now she was gone, and it fell to Ariel alone to rally the faltering defenders against the Horde filth. She would not fail.

                “Sisters, listen to me! We are all that stands between our home and the Horde! Take up your arms and fight with me this day! Drive them back! For the World Tree! For the Alliance!”

                The retreating kaldorei, hearing her words, turned and locked into defensive formations, shoulder to shoulder, blades forward. Ariel saw the determination in their eyes: the Horde would break upon their shields, but would gain no more inches this day. This is where the pendulum of battle would swing back.

                A flash of red caught her eye, and she put up both of her curved blades in time to block a double strike from the assailant who had hurdled the shield line. She parried and turned, batting the blades away and sending her attacker to the dock. He rolled across the wood and spun back up to his feet, weapons ready.

                It was one of the Forsaken, masked and armored in red and gold, with shoulder-length green hair and yellow eyes that seemed to give off sparks. He was tall for an undead, and considerably less gangly than any she’d seen before, but it mattered little. Ariel had killed a score of undead assassins this past week alone, and he would be no different.

                “Give up,” the rogue growled, pointing at her feet, telling her to kneel.

                “Not while I still draw breath,” she hissed back, and spit on the blood-soaked docks. As she charged, she thought she saw him roll his eyes.

                Ten seconds later, Ariel had to admit, the rogue knew his way around his blades. Every other assassin went immediately for the throat, disregarding their own safety, too hungry for the kill, but this one stayed in the pocket, blocking and biding his time, looking for an opening. Several times he’d almost caught her with a leg sweep or a disarming parry, but she would never allow herself to fall for such easy tricks, not with so much on the line. Still, his patience was running out, and his strikes were becoming more and more aggressive; it was only a matter of time before he slipped up.

                Half a second later, he finally did: he spun around with his left sword – a hulking chipped thing that looked to be a relic from several wars ago – in a reverse grip, obviously hoping to slice her belly open, and she preemptively moved to block it with one blade while raising the other to bring down on his exposed neck. Against her better judgement, she chanced a look up at the battlefield, and her heart sank.

                The first of the orcish warlord’s forces to support the siegers had arrived, barreling across the undefended bridges, trampling the Ancient Protector corpses. At first they raised their axes, but when they saw the crippled kaldorei forces, they reached for their manacles instead. She bared her fangs – _death_ was preferable to slavery under orc masters.

_Is it not enough to take our home? Must you take our people too?_

                The feeling of wet warmth across her chest startled Ariel out of her despair and she looked down, still waiting for the blow across her stomach that never came. The assassin stood before her, blades at his sides, both in a forward grip now, with a look in his eyes that she couldn’t place. Disappointment? Regret? Her swords clattered to the docks as her hands rose to her neck and she felt the cut across it, gushing blood through her fingers.

_Bastard cut my throat and I didn’t feel a thing. Elune forgive me._

                She fell to the docks as the strength to stand bled out of her neck, and watched the fall of Lor’danel in her last moments, tears streaming down her cheeks even as they began to turn cold.

                The remaining defenders dropped their weapons and raised their hands, faces to the dirt. The orcs and trolls seemed disappointed at first – obviously they’d all been given orders to take prisoners but only if they didn’t put up a fight – then gladly clapped the kaldorei in irons, pushing them to their knees. Sentinels, innkeepers, merchants, all locked up with glee. Who knew what fate awaited them? Maybe someday they’d be rescued. Not by her, but someone else…

                Movement in the water beneath the inn caught the last of Ariel’s fading attention, and she saw a lone night elf hiding behind one of the supports. What was her name? Delaryn or something?

_She’s our last chance now. Hope she doesn’t do anything stupid._

                Vendettarius watched the light in Ariel Stagguard’s eyes go out, and finally sheathed his swords.

Lingexi, who had kept her distance the whole fight, dropped down onto the docks from her rooftop perch and put her hand on his shoulder.

                “I ran out of time,” he sighed.

                “I know.”

                They watched as the prisoners were marched off to the siege camp. Those who couldn’t walk were carried with a surprising amount of care, though it made sense on second thought; _nobody_ wanted to answer to Saurfang’s axe. The Hidden Hand were battered and bruised, but otherwise seemed in good condition – except for Audoris, who was still sitting on the beach with her face in her hands. The dead night elf at her feet told them all they needed to know.

                “She’s gotten through a lot. She’ll get through this. _We’ll_ get through this,” Lingexi said, sounding like she was trying to assure herself as much as him.

                Lingexi put her hand in Vendettarius’ and curled her fingers around his gloved knuckles. After a moment, he reciprocated. It was the first time in a week they’d touched – really touched each other. “We have to,” she reaffirmed, and looked up at him. He was watching the demolishers roll in, taking positions on the docks and the beach, ready to be loaded into boats for the invasion. Within an hour, they would be at the foot of Teldrassil. ‘No casualties’ wouldn’t be an option anymore. She saw despair in his eyes, and fought back the urge to slap him.

                “You can’t stop this war.”

                He let go of her hand.

                “I know,” he said, adjusting his mask. “But I’m never going to be Sylvanas’ butcher again, and neither is this team.”

                “That’s not your call to make. That’s not even _my_ call to make.”

                “Maybe it should be,” he grunted, then raised his voice. “Hand! On me!”

 

                They found High Overlord Saurfang kneeling in the forest to the south, but he was not alone. At his feet lay Malfurion Stormrage, bleeding from an axe wound in his back. Before them both was the Warchief, Sylvanas Windrunner, mounted on her armored skeleton horse and looking practically radiant with dark pride. Vendettarius held up his fist, and the rest of the Hand stayed back, concealed in the trees. Whatever was happening was not for them to interfere – at least not yet.

                “Regret nothing,” the Warchief continued, a cold smile creeping across her lips. “You did well.”

                “It was not my place to interfere,” Saurfang retorted, scowling back. The massive axe hung loosely in his hands, the will to use it gone. The smile, if it could’ve been called that, disappeared from Sylvanas’s face.

                “My victory was inevitable. He was merely wasting my time. Finish him and be done with it. Take a moment, if you like, then take his head. Meet me at the World Tree.”

                She rode past them all, though Vendettarius wasn’t sure if she saw the Hand or not. It was safer to assume she did, though; little escaped the Banshee Queen’s notice. If she did, she made no acknowledgment – which worried him more.

                “You have led your Horde in service of death,” Malfurion choked out, turning painfully on his back to look Saurfang in the eye. “You will regret this day.”

                The High Overlord looked down at the dying archdruid, and opened his mouth to speak, but another voice cut him off.

                “Malfurion! No!”

                Tyrande Whisperwind rode over the ridge on her nightsaber, her face stricken with grief. She leapt from the creature’s back as if she weighed no more than a feather, white dress billowing around her, and all present, for a moment, were left in awe of the ancient kaldorei’s grace. Then her bow snapped up and the spell was broken.

                “You did not kill him, orc! Why?”

                The High Overlord let his axe rest on the ground, evidently resigned to whatever fate awaited him in that moment.

                “I struck without honor,” he said, the exhaustion audible in his voice. “I did not deserve to end him.”

                “This entire _war_ is without honor!” Tyrande spit back. “How _dare_ you spill so much innocent blood…for _nothing_!”

                “Not for nothing!” Saurfang growled as his grip on the axe tightened, “We spill blood so that the Horde will endure!”

                The forest seemed to hold its breath, waiting to see what would happen. Tyrande’s bow was fixed squarely on Saurfang, but if he rushed, he would be on her in an instant. Out of the Hand, only one moved: Okarnah took a single step forward, raising her arm-blades at the night elf priestess, but Ton’vesi stopped her with a single hand on her shoulder. If either of the mighty warriors in the clearing heard them, they took no notice.

                “Because you spared Malfurion, I will offer you a choice. Attempt to stop me from taking him away, and die…or remain there, kneeling in the dirt, and live.” The words ground out from between Tyrande’s teeth as if escaping against her will.

                “You have a choice as well,” Saurfang countered, rising to his feet. “Take him to Darnassus and both of you will fall when we conquer it, or flee somewhere far from here so that you both survive.”

                Tyrande’s bow arm drew back half an inch, ready to let her arrow fly, but her fingers remained tight around the string.

                High Overlord Saurfang didn’t so much as blink.

                Without another word, Tyrande lowered her bow, knelt beside Malfurion, and cradled him in her arms. The small hearthstone tied to her belt began to glow, then the two night elves vanished in a flash of light. Of the brilliant white nightsaber, there was no sign.

                Saurfang sighed, and nodded towards the trees. The Hidden Hand emerged, sheathing their weapons, and some shaking their heads.

                “I did not know the High Overlord was given to such mercies.”

                Athisia crossed her arms and cocked her head as Duskchill floated beside her. The rest of the Hand turned and stared at her with shock-widened eyes. Several of them wondered what it would be like to watch the towering orc separate her head from her shoulders with a single axe-swing.

                “And I did not know the Hand were in the practice of taking prisoners,” the High Overlord replied, fixing the team with a steel gaze equal parts accusation and approval. “Yet here we all are.”

                He sheathed his axe and approached them.

                “I expected a few prisoners,” he continued, “not an entire town.”

                “Minus one,” Audoris mumbled, fidgeting with her robe straps.

                “Minus _two_ ,” Vendettarius said. “We’re here to occupy their land, not wipe them out.”

                “Right,” the High Overlord said, as if he only half-believed it.

                “What will happen to the prisoners?” Lingexi asked.

                “They’ll be questioned, then released,” Saurfang said, then paused. “ _Safely_ released,” he added, “there’s been enough innocent blood spilled in this war – and more will be spilled before the day is done.”

                He looked at the World Tree across the water, rising through the fog of Darkshore, a monolithic silhouette against a greying sky that bled into the pale blue horizon. Vendettarius thought he saw the slightest shake of the old orc’s head.

                “But enough of that,” the High Overlord grunted, “We must follow our Warchief to…victory.”

 

                An expectant hush had fallen over the invasion force at Lor’danel. The assembled orcs, trolls, tauren, undead, and goblins all stood in formation but barely at attention, fidgeting in place, waiting for an order. Several Alliance ships now sat in the docks, their decks and the water around their war-scarred hulls red with blood, Darnassian purple banners already torn down and replaced with red Horde flags. The reinforcements from Teldrassil, unaware the town had already been taken, had arrived just in time to be dragged to the beach and slaughtered by the occupying Horde forces. The ships would soon be loaded with Saurfang’s vanguard, the first bloody strike at the World Tree’s roots.

                The Warchief stood at the water’s edge, flanked by kaldorei corpses and rows upon rows of demolishers awaiting the Horde battle barges rounding Kalimdor’s northern tip to ferry them to the World Tree. At her left stood Nathanos Blightcaller, the Banshee Queen’s champion’s cloaked outline distinctive even from a distance, and to her right…

                A kneeling night elf, near death if the half-dozen arrows sticking out of her back were any indication. The Banshee Queen knelt beside her, and the two exchanged words. Vendettarius didn’t bother reading their lips. He didn’t want to.

                “What happens now?” Shirong asked.

                “We’ll get an hour of rest, maybe two,” Lingexi answered, zooming in on the distant World Tree with her bloodvine lens. “Then it’s over the water and up the Tree.”

                “And after that?”

                “Same thing that happened after we got to Argus,” Chickenpatch growled, cracking his neck to the side.

                “Except we were fighting demons then, not kaldorei,” Cythrael corrected.

                “Yeah, except that,” the tauren grunted.

                “And we weren’t killing them in their own homes,” Okarnah added.

                “That too,” Chickenpatch admitted. “Then again, the Grimtotems must’ve told you all about killing people in their own homes when you let them into the Earthen Ring, didn’t they?”

                Lightning flared along Okarnah’s bladed gauntlets, and Ton’vesi reached for her rifle. Krodeth and Kharne bared their teeth.

                “Stow it!” Lingexi shouted, turning on them. “You’ve got problems? Settle them when we get back to Orgrimmar. In the meantime, we’ve got a job to do, and I don’t care if you’re not excited about it or ‘invested’ in it. This is war. Sometimes war is easy,” here she held up her hands, “relatively speaking. None of us are losing sleep over dead eredar. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes we have to do things that make us not sleep so good at night.”

                _And sometimes we have to do them to the same people we just fought back to back with_ , Vendettarius thought. He bit his tongue.

                “This is one of those times,” Lingexi continued. “We’re not taking the World Tree because we need the wood. We’re not taking the World Tree to start a war. We’re taking the World Tree so that twenty, thirty years down the line, little orcs and trolls and whoever can grow up in a world where ‘war’ is a scary story their moms and dads tell them to make them do the dishes and that’s it! We take the World Tree, the war _ends!_ ”

                “What about little night elves? What kind of world do _they_ grow up in?”

                Audoris hadn’t spoken a word since the battle at Lor’danel, but now her skeletal hands were balled into tight fists, and her jaw clenched so tight it looked like the metal was starting to bend. Her hood cast most of her face in shadow, but the glowing yellow eyes inside were wet with tears.

                “The kind of world where their parents aren’t dying in battle anymore because they don’t have a—”

                “DO IT!”

                The howl from the beach caught everyone by surprise, and Lingexi whirled around to see the source of the noise. Foul black vapor was billowing off of the Warchief, and her eyes blazed with crimson light that could be seen from up the hill. Her face was twisted with fury the likes of which none of them had ever seen before.

                “DO IT!” she screamed again, this time at her champion, Blightcaller. He took a step back, but then made a gesture to the rows of demolishers surrounding them.

                No one saw who launched the first shot at Teldrassil. In the hours and days and weeks that followed, not one of the demolisher crews claimed responsibility, nor did any of them accuse another team. What would have been, in any other circumstance, an honor, a boast, even the subject of a song in the red-bannered taverns across Kalimdor, became a shame, a secret stain on the honor of a few that would take that blot on their souls to the grave.

                No one saw who launched the first shot at Teldrassil. In the end, it didn’t matter. Someone did, and then the rest followed suit.

                Out of all the Hidden Hand present, only Vendettarius had seen the terrible power of a demolisher squadron on a city-wide scale. Still, when the first volleys exploded against the World Tree’s bark, he expected the flames might takes minutes, even hours to spread up the ancient tree’s massive length. He would’ve been surprised if the World Tree even caught fire at all, the burning demolisher rounds seemed so tiny in the sky.

                He was wrong.

                The effect was immediate.

                Fire snaked up from the initial impacts as if Teldrassil was soaked in rocket fuel, like the blaze was a living force with a conscious hunger devouring the World Tree from the bottom up. In a handful of seconds, it had reached the middle of the great trunk. The second volley of demolisher fire came, and the speed of the flames doubled.

                When the blaze hit the first leaves at the top of the tree, a higher-pitched sound joined the violent crackling of wood across the water. As more leaves were consumed, it rose in pitch and volume until it could be heard above the roar of the blaze and the constant percussive volleys of the demolishers.

                Screaming. Thousands of voices crying out in terror, in pain, as their home became a hell, as they were burned alive.

                The world around Vendettarius save for the burning World Tree became hazy and muffled. Saurfang’s booming voice down at the water’s edge, at first imploring, then furious. Lanstalios’ shakin laughter as he covered his mouth with his hands. Shirong was trying to run down to the beach, yelling at the demolishers to stop, barely restrained by Cythrael who had grown to more than twice his size in the moment. Khatep bowed his head, mumbling something in that strange native language of his that sounded like claws scraping the inside of a skull. Okarnah asked how the kaldorei could evacuate. He didn’t hear Lingexi’s response, but he knew the answer: they couldn’t. They only path was down through the flames. Even if they made it to the shark-infested water, the night elf fleet was still days away.

                Transfixed by the mass destruction, the atrocity of years of war rose from the depths of Vendettarius’ memory and consumed him whole. A new chorus of screams joined the ones in his ears, louder and more terrible: hundreds, thousands of deaths at his hands replaying across his mind in an awful, unstoppable march. Sometimes he had been in control of those hands, other times not. Sometimes, like today, he had only opened the way, enabled the opportunity. The circumstances were irrelevant. They were still his hands.

                After several futile attempts to rouse him, the rest of the Hidden Hand joined the would-be invasion force as they shuffled back into the Horde ground transports and interceptors. Lingex kept her eyes on him to the last, until Darkshore disappeared beneath the blanket of acrid smoke billowing from the World Tree as the interceptor ascended, then turned for home. He hadn’t moved since the first demolisher started firing, as if frozen to the place by a spell. Someone else had been on the beach too, but she wasn’t paying attention. It was difficult to concentrate on anything at that moment. There was only the shock of what the Warchief had done – no, what she had ordered and what _they_ had done, and a sense of dread rising like bile from the pit of her stomach. This was supposed to be the end. It was only the beginning.

 

                “There’s only the two of them,” Sadestrina hissed under her breath, “Why not just kill them now?”

                “One: I’m not going toe-to-toe with this Vendettarius character,” Eada Townsend replied in a hushed whisper, “and two: I’m _certainly_ not going toe-to-toe with Varok Saurfang.”

                When Eada had forsworn the Scarlet Crusade and surrendered her sword to King Varian Wrynn, Light rest his soul, she’d expected a life of penance in a Silver Hand convent – not holding the leashes of a team of dangerous psychopaths the Alliance were too merciful (or stupid) to execute. “And _three_ : we’ve been given orders _not_ to engage. You want to piss off Shaw, that’s your business, but _I’d_ like to stay vertical.”

                The former eredar rolled her glowing yellow eyes and pursed her lips.

                “You mortals are driven by such fear. It’s a wonder any of you can stand up straight.”

                Eada wiped the sweat from her dark brown brow, but ignored Sadestrina’s bait. She’d learned several months ago that the best way to shut the haughty imperator down was to just not respond, though this also had the additional benefit of irritating the newly-Lightforged draenei further.

                “Speaking of Shaw, we need to get back,” Eada said, taking one last look at the burning World Tree. She hated the Horde and knew all too well of their savagery, but this…even for them, this was an unthinkable new low. “I think we’ve seen all we need to see. Libarius, come on.”

                No response.

                “Libarius—!”

                The worgen duelist seemed paralyzed, staring out at the oblivious Forsaken rogue, his claws digging into the tree he was hiding behind so deeply that they vanished inside the bark. Eada took a step towards him, and saw that he was shaking in place, a grin of unimaginable malice spread across his face.

                “Libarius?”

                His head snapped to her, and Eada saw his pupils had become tiny black pinpricks in the angular green of his eyes. With agonizing care, she reached for the sprig of wolfsbane tucked into her belt. Behind her, Sadestrina raised her axe, ready to strike if the worgen attacked. They’d both seen what Libarius did to his victims, and neither had any desire to join that dubious – and terminal – club.

                Before the situation could escalate further, Libarius’ pupils expanded, and he relaxed as if shaking off a chill. Eada and Sadestrina did not lower their weapons quite so quickly.

                “As you will,” Libarius sighed, sounding more bored than disappointed. “The _street filth_ lives another day.”

                He turned and sauntered back to where their gryphons were hidden, as if nothing unusual had happened. Sadestrina shrugged and followed him a moment later, her fel armor clanking together in the least stealthy retreat Eada had ever heard. It wasn’t the former eredar that worried her, however. Mathias Shaw had told her that Libarius and Vendettarius shared some ‘history,’ but the bloodlust in his eyes a moment ago went further than the Spymaster’s understated warning.

                She would need answers when they returned to Stormwind, but she doubted she would get any.

**Author's Note:**

> Part one of my two-part adaptation of the War of Thorns event, detailing how my team of OCs experience and interact with the world and one another during the Battle of Azeroth pre-launch storyline!
> 
> I try to write my stuff as close to following established canon as possible, but there are exceptions. In-game character interactions/dialogue is based off of what is publicly available; i.e., actual in-game dialogue and Blizzard cinematics. The events of the novellas Elegy and A Good War, because they're only currently available as special edition preorders were not taken into account during the writing process.


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